


You're not my Cas

by CopperMask (Hard_boiled_candy)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Dean's a dick when he's sad, Jack's dead (but you don't see it happen), M/M, Pining, Post Bunker, Season 12 adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 09:24:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11986917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hard_boiled_candy/pseuds/CopperMask
Summary: Cas is dead. And somehow, in the turmoil the son of Lucifer created between universes he made a hole for something who looks a lot like Cas to come through. Dean's angry, he's grieving, and he's not having any.





	You're not my Cas

**Author's Note:**

> The Major Character Death is Jack, who I'm frankly assuming is going to buy it in S13. I wanted to write a non-smutty, pining-but-unfluffy fic and this is what happened.
> 
> As always, if you like it show some love!

Dean’s eyes opened. His room at the farmhouse where he and Sam were squatting was dark, but there had been no mistaking the sound of an angel arriving.

 _Cas is dead_ , he thought blankly. The prickly, crawly unease that now accompanied the sound of angel wings was one of the new horrors of grief.

He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Go away,” he said.

_You’re the reason I can’t drink to forget, you asshole._

This simulacrum of his angel visited more often if Dean had been drinking, as if it was easier when his guard was down.

“You prayed to me,” the angel said. The thing that looked like Cas, but wasn’t, observed him from the sole chair in the room.

“Well, then, you got your ears on backward, because I didn’t.” Dean closed his eyes again. He opened them and said, “Why are you still here?”

“You’re in distress.”

“My best friend’s dead, of course I’m ‘in distress.’ My mom’s dead, too! Shit’s kinda dark right now, do you mind?”

“The Dean in my universe was also this direct, most of the time. I learned not to return anger with anger.”

There was a little pause. Dean sat up.

“He’s in Heaven now,” the thing that looked like Cas said. “I salted and burned him with the last of my supplies.”

“Aw, are you missing your best buddy too?” Dean crooned sarcastically.

It was too dark to see its expression. There was the _thwump_ of wings, and it was gone.

“And don’t come back,” Dean said. He got up and put a bathrobe on, and knocked on Sam’s bedroom door.

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“We gotta do something about the warding; that fucking Cas knock-off is getting in and out of here like a mosquito through a busted window.”

“Maybe you don’t want him around, but he’s not a Cas knock-off,” Sam said patiently.

Dean wasn’t having any of that. “I don’t care if he’s the fucking genuine authorized Heavenly reproduction, he’s not my Cas, he’ll never be my Cas, and I don’t want his meatsuit creeping ‘round here any more.”

Sam sighed and put his fingertips up to his eyes and rubbed them. “Dean, he’s stuck in this universe, thanks to — well, you know — and I’m sure he’d rather be somewhere he’s welcome.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” Dean said. “I want the library and the map table at the Bunker, not to mention the secret stash of eighty year old scotch, and surprise, surprise, it’s gone.”

“I miss Cas too, Dean, more than I can say. We always thought he’d come back,” Sam said softly. “Back to us in the Bunker.”

“How many times did he die to save us?” Dean said. His voice broke. “I’m not going to sleep anyway, so I’m going to go for a drive.”

The thing that looked like Cas had not left the farmhouse; it stood in the corridor, just out of sight, listening. It waited as Dean changed, and watched as he got into the Impala and set off down the dark roads.

Longing and anguish filled the angel. Dean’s soul pulled at it. The grief it had carried for years pulled at it too, hoping to find some relief in Dean’s physical presence, even if it wasn’t Dean, not really. Castiel felt the pull, and couldn’t resist. It was the only speck of brightness, apart from Sam, in this terrible world he’d found himself in.

“Jesus!” Dean exclaimed, as the angel appeared next to him. “Out, out, get out of my car!” he yelled.

“I miss this car,” the angel said, as if it couldn’t help itself.

“Don’t give a shit what you miss. Go the fuck back where you came from!”

The oceanic blue gaze was fixed on him. He knew it was. “There’s nothing for me there, even if I could go back.”

“We’re going to fix the warding to keep you out,” Dean warned.

“You won’t be able to; I can go anywhere you are.”

“I’m not your Dean.” This came out as an almost unintelligible growl.

The angel narrowed its eyes. “Close enough for my locator spell to work. I always know where you are, if you’re alive. When I felt your presence I felt joy for the first time in years.”

Dean was dismissive. “Sad way to get your jollies; you know you’re stalking the wrong Dean?”

“I know. Dean’s been gone two years now. We had a violent disagreement, and I left him in anger, and now he’s dead. Dean would have died anyway, but Sam died too, because I wasn’t there.” The angel looked away, to the countryside rolling past them.

There was the ghost of a smirk. “So you’re guilty, and lonely. Sounds about average for a Tuesday night.”

The angel turned toward him and gave a thin, insincere smile. “And you’re not?”

“I think I cope with it better, or maybe I’m just less sensitive.” Dean’s tone was pure asshole. He didn’t glance at the angel. “And of course, I still have Sam.”

The angel now looked sad. It was safe to show how it felt if Dean never looked at it. “You’re angry at your Castiel for dying, and you’re taking it out on me. I understand. I felt much the same when Dean died.”

Dean snorted and shook his head, without ever taking his eyes from the road. “I don’t know what kind of thing you had going on with _your_ version of Dean, but I’m not liking how clingy you are, one goddamned bit.”

“Clingy?”

“Get out of my car,” Dean said, voice flat and blank and clear.

There was the sound of wings. Dean drove for an hour, then turned around and went home, and after a very long time, he slept.

Dean figured that if he couldn’t ward the bunker, so to speak, he might be able to ward his mind. He and Sam found a spell that prevented his thoughts about Cas from leaving his head — or being read — and the visits from the angel who looked like Cas dropped away to almost nothing.

 

Dean was unaware that the angel had started to visit his brother more instead.

Sam didn’t dare tell him. Sam had let himself give in to tears for Cas and his mother in his room one night and the angel had appeared and said that it could ease the grief, and Sam felt the power and beauty of Castiel’s wings as it brought them over from the etheric plane, and he felt a calm come over him for the first time since that awful day.

He felt like a complete shit for not telling Dean. But if Dean wasn’t willing to let some comfort in, that was just his own sorry-assed giant economy sized self-pity blocking the way.

 

Weeks went by. Dean still couldn’t get drunk, because the angel would appear _every_ time he’d been drinking, as it seemed to loosen the hold of the spell. Sam commented that with the reduction in alcohol consumption, Dean seemed to be coping better than at other times when he’d suffered a loss, and Dean prevaricated; it was better to stay sharp, than end up at the bottom of forty ounces of bourbon no smarter – or better able to fight – than when he’d started.

The thing that looked like Cas still visited. Dean kept coming up with different nicknames, like ‘Jimmy Novak’s worst tenant’ and the ‘Cas wannabe’ and the ‘thing that looks like Cas’. Finally, he settled on ‘Droopy’, since every time he appeared he was so sad that Dean just wanted to punch him, even knowing he’d break a knuckle.

“Did it ever occur to you,” Dean said, “that the last fucking thing I want is to see Cas, but _sad_? If it was my Cas, he’d be happy to see me. Overjoyed in fact.”

“I can’t feel joy, not when you hate me like this.”

Dean softened, just a bit. “I don’t hate you. I just want to be left alone to grieve in my own way.”

“To drink and chase women,” the angel said.

“Cas didn’t judge me like you do,” Dean said.

“It was a comment. I never judged Dean. He had reasons for what he did.”

Dean coughed, so that it almost sounded like a laugh. “Everyone in this universe except Sam thinks Cas and I were lovers.” For once, he was looking right at the angel.

A rueful expression crossed the angel’s face. “I know you weren’t. You were brothers-in-arms — closer than lovers can ever be.”

Angels, demons and humans had all chided the angel for his ungodly closeness to Dean, but it didn’t matter. Only their comradeship mattered. Or more properly, only the comradeship mattered, when it was all he could have.

“And how’s that?” Dean asked, almost amused.

“You live with a lover. But your brothers-in-arms keep you alive,” Droopy said. “That bond is forged in blood and sacrifice, and is unlike any other.”

Dean looked like he smelled something bad. “I don’t have that bond with you.”

“I’m stuck here. Let me at least fight at your side, when the fight comes — and you know it will.”

 

Sam had been proposing the same line of reasoning. “He’s a fully juiced-up seraph, and if he wants to fight with us, we should let him. Doing anything else is just being — squeamish, and not making use of the few allies we have. And can’t we just be kind to him? He’s suffering too.”

“He’s just like every other angel-dick but Cas and maybe two others we dealt with before, and I don’t give a rat’s ass if he’s suffering. He makes my skin crawl and my scalp prickle and I can’t stand to be around him.”

“I understand, but maybe you can keep the personal away from the political for a minute and treat him like you would Crowley. Not your friend — but useful.”

“If you say so,” Dean said without much emphasis.

 

Keeping that conversation in mind, Dean softened his approach. He drank a couple of beers to make him appear, but he didn’t. Finally he said, “Droopy Castiel, where are you?”

_Fwup._

“You are under the impression I have nothing better to do than tabulate your alcohol consumption?” Droopy said, eyes narrowed.

“You can wring my liver out when I’m dead,” Dean growled.

Droopy looked away.

“What is it?” he said to the wall.

“Can’t even look at me?”

“The man I fought beside isn’t looking back,” Droopy said. “Was there a reason you called?”

“What was the other Dean like?”

For a minute Droopy Castiel looked at Dean with a face so stricken and anguished that Dean recoiled, as if realizing that he had somehow struck his friend Cas for no reason.

_He’s not my friend._

The angel looked away again.

He answered with little expression, looking down, as if he were giving weight to the question.“Tougher than you. Less of a ladies’ man. Unconvinced that he could ever do anything to redeem himself. He definitely drank more than you do.”

“I’ve had to slow my roll on the hooch, since it makes _you_ jump out of the fucking woodwork,” Dean said. “And how could the other Dean be tougher than me?” he scoffed.

“I told him how I felt, and it didn’t change our partnership,” Droopy said. “Definitely tougher than you.”

The world crawled to a halt and all of Dean’s brains got flung off into space, screaming like cartoon characters.

“Told him… how you … felt,” he said. His lips felt like flannel.

“I don’t know how _your_ Cas felt about you, but I loved Dean and I told him I did.”

Dean tried to get his feet under him. He gave a shrug. “So? Cas told me he loved me … at least once, that I recall.”

“Ah, I wasn’t aware that he’d shared wanting to be your life partner,” Droopy said softly. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s something you never told Sam.”

Dean’s heart pounded.

“May I ask,” Droopy said in that soft, kindly voice, “What your response was when he told you?” He was looking at Dean, but it was hard to tell his expression.

Dean felt something bubbling and popping under his skin and couldn’t speak. He turned around, realized to his horror that he was crying and wiped his eyes. After breathing hard a couple of times, he said, “He, he never said anything like that to me.” The bubbling eased a bit.

“But he did tell you he loved you?” Droopy confirmed.

Dean remembered the occasion and became lost in thought. “He was dying,” Dean whispered. After a moment he could feel one of Droopy’s hands on his shoulder. The prickly feeling burst toward his shoulder like spiky electricity and he twisted away and yelled, “Get your goddamned hands off me.”

 

It wouldn’t make sense for Droopy to stick around after that.

 

 _Fwup_.

 

Dean found himself living with the conundrum for days.What had Droopy said, and what had alternaDean said in reply?

Cas had lived at the Bunker - and then always found somewhere else to be. He had said, “I love you, all of you,” and Dean had known damn well what he meant, but what was he supposed to say?

That he was ashamed of himself for loving Cas’s vessel instead of him, or the loving amalgam that Cas and Jimmy Novak made?

That he wanted his love to be pure and holy and brotherly and it was, instead, anything but?

That he could never cross that line because it might mess things up with Sam?

That if he ever said ‘I love you’ to another man, his father would figure out how to cheat a hunter’s funeral to haunt him?

And what the _hell_ had the other Dean said to Droopy?“Thanks man, but I’m not into your gorgeous lips and blue eyes and your bed-head and complete lack of style?”

He tried to imagine it. His Cas.

“Dean.”

_Well, that part was easy. But what would he say after that? Something cute and awkward._

“I have a matter of great importance I want to discuss with you.”

_Nah, too pompous, even for Cas._

“Dean, let’s get married.”

 _Nah, too direct, even for Cas. And if I heard him say that, I’d assume witchcraft, a love potion or trickery. Or maybe…_ And for a moment Dean considered what would have happened if Cas had tried to get physical with him. You know, just walked up to him and planted one on him, or grabbed his ass, or gotten into bed with him, or the shower, or the sleeping bag, or any of the thousand things Dean had sometimes imagined.

There were times Dean knew what had happened, exactly, as clear as the initials he’d carved into that table with Sam.

Droopy had gathered up all his courage and asked for what he wanted, and alternaDean believed he didn’t deserve it - or any happiness even like it - and said, ‘No thanks. But we’ll always be _friends_.’

Dean tried to think of how Droopy would have felt after that. Cas had always been a bizarre blend of quixotically noble and grindingly practical. So Dean bet that Droopy had sucked it up, believing that any chance to be with Dean was better than nothing, and he wouldn’t lose Sam this way, and he was still an important part of Dean’s life.

His Dean had died in his arms. If it had felt anything like when Cas went, he’d still be laden down with grief.

And it was why he was still here. He’d take a tiny little crumb of Dean, even the angry, jealous asshole Dean of this universe, rather than have nothing.

After three days of painful thoughts, Dean decided to go for a run. He came back into the house very quietly, and heard two voices coming from Sam’s room.

As he came up to the door, he heard the unmistakable sound of angel wings behind it, and Dean banged on it very hard, yelling, “Sammy, is he here?”

There was a short pause, and Sam said, “No, Dean, he left as soon as he realized you were back.”

Sam opened the door.

“I suppose we should talk,” Sam said reluctantly.

“So you’ve been chatting with Droopy.”

“His name is Castiel, Dean, even if you don’t like it. And in this universe, he has nobody; you and I still have each other.”

“Yeah, I know. Next time I see him I mean to apologize. He can’t help how he feels - any more than I can, I guess.”

“So can I stop hiding that I’m spending time with him?”

Dean sighed. “He’s your friend too. Or was. Whatever. I guess you’re having to make friends all over again.”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t like you calling him Droopy, but I can see why you do. He’s way sadder than our Cas ever was. And… Dean…. it’s hard for me to say it, but he wasn’t surprised when you didn’t want to talk to him. Thank God he wants to talk to me, sometimes I feel like he’s the only person who can help me put all of what’s happened in some kind of order.”

There was a pause and Sam said, “Poor Jack.”

There was another long pause. “Yeah,” Dean said. “I guess I understand all that.”

“He wrapped me in his wings, Dean,” Sam said. “Honestly? It’s the most peace I’ve felt since, since everything. Since Mom died.”

“Lucky you,” Dean said. He could have had that strange experience himself, if he wasn’t so busy grieving for the angel he’d lost. “Wish I could brush it all off that easily.”

Sam stared at him with disbelief. Dean pushed on with being an asshole. “Has he asked you to be his life partner yet?”

“Dean, what the hell, man,” his brother said, shaking his head with bemused pity.

“He asked alternaDean to be his life partner, isn’t that cute?”

“ _What_?” Sam breathed. In a sharp voice, he said, “And _no_ , I don’t think it’s cute. What was the answer?”

“‘No thanks, but we can keep hunting monsters together, right?’” Dean said, cheekily. “He friendzoned an angel, now _that_ took _balls_! Apparently it worked, too; Droopy stuck around. He also said alternaDean was tougher than me because he didn’t let it impact the mission. Or words to that effect. I’m not sure I like the other Dean much. He sounds like a bit of a tool, ya know?”

“Just a smidgeon,” Sam said, “Incredibly similar, in fact, to the one I got stuck with.”

Dean expected the angel, and he didn’t come. Weeks went by. He asked Sam if they’d had any feathery visitors, and the answer was always no, with a worried frown. Word came that he’d gone to visit Claire, and they relaxed a bit.

After a couple of months, during a lull in hunting, Dean’s phone rang, and as soon as he heard that familiar voice, he felt weak and had to sit down.

“Hullo,” the angel said.

“Castiel,” Dean said.

“Winchester,” the angel said. Both of Dean’s eyebrows went up.

“Where ya been?”

“Sioux Falls. There’s a Women's Hunting School here I’m helping set up.”

“Ri-i-ight. Jody took you in, and you’re still there. Well, don’t forget to come for a visit, Sam’s got some research he wanted to share with you.” Dean took a breath. “I wouldn’t mind if you dropped by either.”

“It’s all right. You don’t have to pretend to want to see me just to keep things copacetic with Sam.”

“Oh, now we’re using Sixties slang,” Dean said.

“I’m allowed to, I lived through them, unlike you,” Castiel said.

“Well, aren’t we salty!” Dean said in surprise.

“There were a lot of things I never said to Dean, because I expected to be with him for a long time and I didn’t want to say anything I’d have to take back. Fortunately, you’re not Dean and since nothing I say can change your abysmal opinion of me, I can say whatever comes into my mind, which is rather liberating.”

Dean blinked a couple of times. “We’re having a games night a week Sunday. Come by, or go fuck yourself, it’s all the same to me. Say hi to Jody and hug Claire for me.” Dean hung up.

The phone rang again immediately.

“I don’t have that kind of relationship with Claire in this universe,” Castiel sniffed. “My Claire didn’t make it.”

“You don’t have that kind of relationship with anybody in this universe except Sam right now,” Dean said. This wasn’t his Cas, and he didn’t have to tiptoe around _his_ feelings, either. “But you might want to use me, somebody that Claire likes in _this_ universe, to get you on hugging terms with Claire, if you’d like. Her feelings about Cas were complex as fuck but she loved him. Stand in front of her with your arms open and say you’ve got a hug from Dean and Sam if you want to collect it and ten bucks says she goes for it.”

“You are so much more manipulative than the Dean I’m used to,” Castiel said. He sounded legit horrified. Dean smirked.

“And my Cas wouldn’t turn a hair,” Dean laughed, thinking of his partner in Apocalypse and crime. “Quite possibly the most bent seraph God ever made, who still managed to be good after all the end of the world bullshit.”

“That’s how you saw him?” Castiel said. “As bent?”

If he’d been in the room, Dean would have thrown him a look as if he pitied Castiel for being so stupid. “No. We were equally broken. The darkest, most horrifying, the deadliest, most poisonous forms of torture had been levelled against us, and we’d both been responsible for a trail of dead human beings and kinda marginal monster-ish things and a fuckton of monsters – and a few gods while we were at it.”

Dean sighed. “You know we couldn’t look at each other and call one of us worse so it made us kinda cosmically even.”

“Did he know you loved him?” Castiel said, as if Dean had said none of the foregoing.

Startled, Dean replied, “I’m not – like – that.”

Castiel sighed. “Winchester, I’m not talking about sex, since I can well believe it never happened in your universe, either. I’m talking about talking. Did you tell him or write him a note and indicate in words that you loved him.”

“Fuck you.”

“I know you did, I can smell it, don’t even think about lying.”

“You’re miles away,” Dean said, snorting, and heard the gentle riffle of angel wings.

 _Crap_. “You dick,” Dean said. “You feathery dick, just like all the rest of the feathery dicks.” Dean turned and there Castiel was. He was scowling, and he looked pasty-faced and punched-out and exhausted. He was wearing a dark blue casual suit jacket over a henley and jeans and loafers, and he looked so unexpectedly sexy that Dean turned around again so as not to be tempted to gawk.

“It’s very important that I know whether you’re lying or not, or just baiting me.” Castiel seemed to be a little out of breath.

“So _now_ you want a personal visit. Too bad Sammy isn’t here; he had errands.”

“I was here to speak to you. Did you ever tell your Cas you loved him?”

“I gave him a mix-tape,” Dean said with embarrassment, after a very long pause.

Castiel spoke in an implacable growl. “Did he understand its significance?” 

Dean turned around enough to glance at him. “What, and you do?” he asked dubiously.

Castiel did. “It’s what you give a person you’re longing for. Something beautiful or fun or moving that will make them think of you when you’re not around. It’s what you give when you’re opening your heart to someone.”

Dean was a little taken aback.

“Well - I wouldn’t say - any of that, I just thought it was horrible he didn’t have any Zeppelin in the truck.”

Droopy Castiel’s eyes were drilling into him, he could feel it even without looking. “Did he say anything? When you gave it to him?”

“Jesus, man, what’s with the fucking third degree? Tell you what, if you’ve got all this pent-up rage toward your Dean going on, and I'm the lucky winner, I’ll just check out now.”

“Please. I want to - never mind, just let me know what he said.”

“He said, and I quote, ‘Thanks. I’ll go put this in the truck.’”

“So he acted as if he didn’t know what the significance was.”

Dean shook his head. “Naw, naw. _Acted_? He didn’t know! He tried to give it back to me later, although that was kind of mixed up with some other bullshit I don’t want to talk about right now.”

The angel had the ghost of a cynical smile on his face. “I ask myself what you would say if I told you that your Cas knew exactly what it meant at all times.”

“Bullshit,” Dean said calmly.

“And that would be a very comforting, and also very wrong thing to think, so I’ll leave you with your delusions, Winchester.” There seemed to be an extra flapping noise, full of derision, and Dean was alone again.

He hadn’t cried much, since Cas died. He mostly felt numb and mostly ‘just maintained’.

Now he cried. If Cas knew, then when he’d come back to steal the Colt he’d known that he was returning Dean’s love, or trying to, and that Dean had told him to keep it, and he’d kept it, and had it with him when he _died_.

Once he started, he couldn’t stop. It came in waves. Once he went fifteen minutes without sobbing, so he got up to wash his face and drink something and as soon as he looked in the bathroom mirror he started again, until he began to think maybe he’d lost his mind. He kept crying and crying and couldn’t stop.

Two hours passed. His rib cage was spasming and he could swear he was going to start crying sand. There was the flap of angel wings, and Droopy, his face distorted by tears of blood, appeared.

“Stop crying!” he commanded.

Dean gave two quick coughs of laughter, and then growled, “Make me.”

“I can feel what’s happening to you, and it’s - it’s very distressing.”

“Oh really,” Dean said. He did feel less like crying now that there was an angel here to blame for it. Castiel sat across from him, refusing to leave until he was completely stopped. When Dean was finally calm, Castiel leaped up, and eyes wild, said,“Thank you.”

Castiel cleaned the blood off his face in the bathroom. Dean watched him from his bed through the open bathroom door. He expected the angel to come back in and talk, but as soon as he was clean, he was gone. Dean thought, _why didn’t he do the insta-clean if he’s at full mojo?_

There was a pause as he thought about it.

_Because he’s running out._

A couple of days later there was a text message from the angel. <<For reasons beyond my control I won’t be able to attend your games night. Please convey my apologies to Sam.>>

“You can’t fly any more, you dumb son of a bitch. You’re running out of grace.” Dean looked at the phone. He was glad Droopy was somewhere safe, at least.

 

Before they knew it, it was Thanksgiving, and Jody and the girls asked them to Sioux Falls for three days.

Sam and Dean had been evicted in the middle of dinner from the last place they'd been squatting and had just barely talked themselves out of a vagrancy bust; the idea of having a family Thanksgiving was too tempting for Sam, and he laughed at Dean when he said the only fly in the ointment was Droopy.

Sam said, "I'm looking forward to seeing him. I'm pretty sure he's not looking forward to seeing you."

"That's guaranteed," Dean said. Still, his heart thumped painfully when he saw Droopy, who was laughing at something Claire was saying, and not looking droopy at all, until he saw Dean. The smile left Castiel's face so abruptly Dean felt its departure like a punch in the gut.

He turned away and started talking to the newest recruit, a tiny teenaged girl named Pauline ('call me Paulie!') whose spangle of freckles was quite the mismatch with her green-and-black peekaboo hair.Before he really understood what had happened, she had asked Dean for an impromptu seminar on dealing with being mobbed in a corridor when you were tiny.

"Well," Dean said. "Depends what you're trying to do, past just surviving. Are you defending a room, trying to get out, trying to get in, or what?"

"I'm trying to get out, get past them."

“Well then," Dean said, and they fought their way up and down the upstairs hallway against a variety of imaginary enemies. It was bracing, you might say.

He found himself (while freezing his ass off, it was supposed to go below zero that night and the wind was fucking _howling_ ) standing by the trunk of the Impala with a flashlight, going through the goodies in the back while half a dozen women clustered around him and exclaimed over his gear. Sam and Jody were inside talking. _Like sensible adults._

The next time he looked up, Droopy was lurking at the back of the group of women, and Dean scowled at him. That wasn't enough to make him leave, so Dean resolved to ignore him.

Paulie said, "My teeth are chattering, I'm bailing."

The other women agreed. They thanked Dean and went inside. Dean carefully put everything away and turned back to Droopy, who was still hanging around like a nasty smell.

"Fuck do _you_ want," Dean said.

"I was hoping to speak to you privately," Droopy said.

Dean did not make eye contact. "You got about thirty seconds before I go back inside."

"Could we get out of the wind, perhaps?" Droopy said.

"You want to sit in Baby? You're an angel, the cold shouldn't bug you."

"We'll be more assured of a private conversation here in the car," Droopy said.

"But what about my reputation?" Dean said. "I don't want the girls to think you and I are necking in the car."

Droopy actually opened his mouth in disbelief. He closed it, shaking his head, and without another word, turned and went back inside.

Dean found Jody after he returned to the warmth (and friendly din) of the house. "What's with Droopy?"

Jody let her facial expression render her opinion clear. Then, more sad than pissed, she said, "I heard that's what you call him. Why can't you call him Castiel? It's not _his_ fault that he was pulled into this universe."

“’Cause he's a dick to me, and it creeps me out that he put the mack on the Dean in the other universe."

" _What_?"

"Yeah. He told me about it, almost like he was bragging. This version of Castiel – has a screw loose."

"So did the other one, but you were used to him," Jody said. "And since when do we give our friends in the biz a hard time over mental health problems? His PTSD is crippling him and he feels like he doesn't belong here, but he's really making an effort."

"Claire seems happy enough that he's here."

“That girl sucks up more than she lays down. She worries about him. Give him a chance to talk to you, it won't kill you." Jody’s brown eyes bored into him. Dean hated being on the outs with her, even a little bit.

He tried to joke his way through. "No," he said cheerfully. "But I might kill him, just because he pisses me off so much." Nonetheless, he watched his alcohol intake, to prevent himself becoming either maudlin or mean, and to ensure he didn't say anything in front of Sam, or Jody, or Claire, which he might come to regret.

Droopy sat next to Sam and Claire at the other end of the laden Thanksgiving table. There were four kinds of pie - which they didn't tell Dean about until the big reveal at the end of the meal, when he was already so stuffed he could only manage two pieces.

He looked up and Droopy was watching him eat pie like it was the goodbye scene in a shitty romance movie. "Stop it," Dean said with his mouth full.Droopy looked away. Chatter at the table died for a second.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Dean," Jody said.

"He can't help it," Droopy said. "May I be excused." He rose abruptly and left the table, apparently to go the room in the garage Jody had set aside for him.

"Dean, really?" Sam said.

"He was staring at me like this!" Dean attempted to imitate Cas's expression. One of the girls giggled and Claire gave her - and Dean - a hate stare.

"Don't be mean to Castiel," Paulie said. "He's having a tough time."

“It’s Thanksgiving,” Jody said. “Dean, go apologize to Castiel and don’t let me lay eyes on you until you do.”

“May I be excused,” Dean growled. He threw his napkin onto his plate in a fine display of temper and stalked off to the garage.

He banged on the door of the garage spare room.

“Go away,” Droopy said.

“No can do, feather-butt, I got a mission.”

Droopy opened the door.

“Winchester –“

Dean had his right index finger up, and then wiggled it, as if Droopy needed to be cautioned. “Uh-uh-uh, I’m here to apologize. I’m sorry I spoke rudely to you out by the car, and I’m sorry I spoke rudely to you at the table, rudely enough that you thought you had to leave.”

Cas sat down with his back to him again. “I’m more than happy to accept your apology. May we speak?”

“We are speaking. Let’s get it over with,” Dean said. _Can’t even look at me._

“I’m dying,” Droopy said. “Please don’t tell the others.”

Dean chuckled. “Horse puckey, you’re not dying. Maybe you’re a little low on grace, but that’s not the same as dying.”

“Since you don’t believe me, there’s no point continuing this nightmarish _farce_ ,” Droopy said. “Please leave. Don’t say anything to Jody, especially, she’ll be - ” and he paused, as if unsure what to say.

“Disappointed?” Dean supplied. Unease crawled through him. “Are you really dying?” He walked across the room so he could see Cas’s - _Droopy’s_ \- face.

“Yes,” Droopy said. “I was ready to go, and then I felt your presence, and I couldn’t leave.” He pulled out an angel blade. “Would you do the honors? It’s a mercy killing, really.”

_What the fuck?_

“I’m _not_ killing Jody’s houseguest over Thanksgiving weekend just because _you’re_ having mental health problems,” Dean said, as if explaining the situation to a moron.

Droopy picked up the angel blade and Dean dove for it with all of his strength. They fought for control of the blade; the angel was weakened already or he would have made short work of Dean. Finally Dean wrestled it away.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he panted. Against his better judgment, he put his arms around Droopy.

“Castiel,” Dean said. It wasn’t intentional. It sort of slipped out, to get the angel’s attention.

“Oh, Dean,” he responded, into his neck.

“It’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Dean said, taking refuge in a joke, as always. Warmth bubbled up in his body, and he felt himself relax against the angel. To his astonishment, he saw blue light - grace - emerge from his own body in gossamer strands, and enter the angel, who whimpered in fear. Then the angel gave a groan which might have agony, or delight, it was hard to tell, and he would have fallen if Dean wasn’t holding him up.

“Wanna explain what just happened?” Dean said, plopping Droopy into a chair.

The angel was smiling faintly, an improvement over his usual expressions, which veered from sad to sour. “You won’t like it.”

“I don’t like much about you,” Dean said cheerfully.

“You just saved my life,” Droopy said.

“You’re welcome, I guess. Why did I have grace in my body?”

“Your Cas put it there,” Droopy said. “Probably just before he died.”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

There was a pause. They eyed each other. Their relationship had shifted, but it was hard to say how. “Is it all out of me?” Dean asked.

“Yes. It wasn’t where you could feel it, necessarily, and only an angel could use it.”

“That’s why you wanted to talk to me, to get a mojo recharge. We done here?”

There was a bang on the door.

“Evidently,” Droopy said, and stood.

“You guys okay in there?” Sam’s voice, threaded with anxiety, was muffled.

“Peachy!” Dean called in a loud voice.

“Hotsy-totsy!” Droopy called.

“Hotsy-totsy?” Dean murmured, giving Droopy some major side-eye.

“Mind if I come in?” Sam said.

“Feel free,” Dean said.

Sam was not hiding behind the door when God handed out eyesight. His eyebrows blasted off for the ceiling as he came in. Abruptly his eyes narrowed and he shot an assessing glance at them both. “Why’s there an angel blade out?”

“I tried to gank him but he stopped me,” Dean said, in the same falsely cheerful voice he used most of the time he was around Droopy.

“Dean!” Castiel said warningly.

“Castiel!” Dean said with heavy sarcasm. “I’m kidding. I apologized and Castiel here was so overcome he tried to kill himself.”

_Fwup._

Sam looked around the room. “Dean, I know you’re a really nonchalant kind of shitbird, but even _you_ will have a hard time explaining this, especially if Castiel doesn’t come back.”

“He’ll be back, now that he’s juiced up he won’t be able to stay away from me. Profound bond and all that,” Dean said, smiling sarcasm running through every word. “He just got his wings back for the first time in months, so he’ll be gone a while, but he won’t want to overdo it, so he won’t be gone more than a day or two, especially if we stay put.”

Sam considered this. “Dean, was he – suicidal?”

Dean didn’t prevaricate. “No. I stopped him. Then he got his mojo back by something totally fucked up and a weird grace transfer and I’m still trying to figure out what really happened.”

“Fucked up and weird is what we _do_ , Dean,” Sam said. “I don’t have a problem staying here, apart from the fact that there’s only the one bathroom, which contains more haircare products than a Walgreens.”

“How’s that a problem?” Dean said. “You’ll finally have an adequate supply!”

“Dean, you can’t laugh this off. What do we tell Jody?”

“Trying to get your story straight, boys?” a familiar voice said. Claire was right behind Jody.

“C’mon in!” Dean crowed. “Castiel isn’t here.”

“Where did he - did he _fly_ off?”

“Yuppers,” Dean said.

Claire looked at the other three and burst out, “He hasn’t been able to fly for ages! What happened?”

“Do you want the ‘suitable for children’ version, or the ‘we’re all hunters here’ version?”

“Dean!” Sam and Jody said, simultaneously.

Dean had that mean smirk that all three of them longed to wipe from his face. “Okay, no frills, here we come! I come in here to apologize to him as instructed. I apologize. He accepts. He wants to talk to me about something. He says he’s dying,” at which Sam jerked, and Claire and Jody both gasped. “Yeah, dramatic, but bullshit, right? Then he says it’s all for the best, grabs an angel blade and tries to gank himself. I dive like Alex Rodriguez and manage to wrestle it away from him. Sensing that his mental health is possibly not at peak strength, I put my arms around him to restrain him, and the next thing I know I’m watching a fuckton of grace migrate out of _my_ body into _his_. Like, not a full charge, but whoa nelly, more than enough to heal him with. We have a brief conversation.”

Dean paused. The other three looked very suspicious, as the longer he stayed silent, the more likely he was to be editing or lying. Dean drew a breath. “He says something about how our Cas hid it in me, which is, like, impossible, then Sam shows up and he fucks off.”

“You bastard!” Claire said. “All he wants is to fight alongside you, and you made it impossible.”

She stormed off.

Jody glared at Dean. Then she shared a concerned glance with Sam. Sam looked even more concerned than usual… _was that guilt?_

“He’ll be back,” Dean said, in a reassuring voice.

 _Fwup_.

“Jody,” the angel said.

_Oh well. Cas is gone, may as well call him Castiel._

He looked at Dean. “Hey, Castiel,” Dean said. “How did Cas hide the grace in me? We’re all wanting to know.”

“Shouldn’t everyone know?” Castiel asked. “Secrets often make life harder than it has to be. I had to leave to investigate something. I don’t have proof, but if I’m right – well – it makes for a strange story.”

Sam looked distressed, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

“You were only gone a minute!” Dean said.

“I’m an angel,” Castiel said, frowning slightly. “Let’s go into the living-room and sit down, and I’ll tell everyone.”

When they were assembled, Castiel spoke, with quiet intensity.

“Some years ago Dean and Sam were pulled into an alternate universe, actually a series of pocket universes created by Gabriel, pretending to be Loki. Every time I got close enough to rescue them I’d get tossed from that universe into another one. At one point I was right out of the pocket universes and into fully end-to-end parallel universes, and I’d use the etheric plane to move back, like a - like a highway.

“There’s an understanding among higher order creatures that if we are coming through an alternate universe on the etheric highway, then we’re just coming through; it’s like driving down the highway at night and seeing a moose cross the road. You don’t want to meet the moose, and the moose doesn’t want to meet you, but sometimes –“ and here Castiel paused.

“The car meets the moose,” Dean said.

“Yes. And your Cas collided with a demon who had obtained and was making off with some grace. I can’t tell whose grace it was originally, and I suspect it’s a blend, and not come by honestly, if you know what I mean. The magical containment vessel was broken and some got out, but Cas repaired the container and stashed it. At some later point he diverted the grace into Dean, I’m not exactly sure how or when.”

“Why wouldn’t I notice I was a goddamned lightning bug?” Dean asked with irritation.

“You’re used to being healed with grace. You probably wouldn’t have noticed; he likely took advantage of you being unconscious at some point to do it.”

“And it sat inside me for years and Cas never mentioned it again. We desperately needed grace and he never said a fucking word. How is this possible?”

“Because he couldn’t,” Sam said.

“ ** _What_**?” Dean yelled.

“We tried. Somehow the demon influence kept it trapped inside you.”

“Sam.” It was a growl, barely speech.

“Dean, I know. But extractors didn’t work; we tried when you were unconscious, and a little wisp would come to the surface and then nothing.”

“You lied by omission to me, Sammy,” Dean said, eyes round with anger.

Sam spread his hands and made his excuses. “It couldn’t hurt you; the only person who knew for sure it was there was Cas, and he couldn’t get it out. We had some ideas about how to extract it, hopefully for him to be able to use, but I couldn’t work on my own and Cas was, well, busy.”

“That grace might have kept him alive,” Dean roared. Everyone in the room was taken aback.

Castiel spoke softly. “Unlikely, Dean. But I’ve crossed through the universes the grace came from, and it recognized me somehow. You literally had to put your arms around me before I even realized it was there, and at first I was so startled I thought _you_ were pulling it out of _me_ instead of the other way around.”

“So all’s well that ends well, let’s break out the board games, eh Sammy?” Dean said, “See you folks later,” and stalked out of the house to the Impala and the nearest open bar.

Castiel opened his eyes as if in great pain. He said, “I’ll keep an eye on him so he doesn’t drink himself into a ditch.”

“Thanks, Castiel,” Sam said. He gave Castiel a hug, and the angel put his head against Sam’s chest for a heartbeat.

“Winchesters; exciting boys to party with, I’ll give ‘em that,” Jody said, closing the door after Dean.

“What a prick,” Paulie said.

Castiel rounded on her. “Do you know how many times that man has saved the world? He’s a hunter, not a saint!” He vanished.

Castiel let Dean sit at the bar with his drink for a few minutes before he went in after him. It wasn’t his intention to haunt him all night, merely to extract a promise that he wouldn’t become too drunk and make Jody endure the shame of bailing out one of her own Thanksgiving houseguests.

Dean had searched on his phone for “Best dive bars of Sioux Falls” and wound up at the Thirsty Duck. Which wasn’t exactly a dive bar. It was actually okay.

Despite having eaten a staggering amount of food mere minutes before, Dean was already into the bar peanuts. Castiel had expected a double whiskey in front of Dean. It was a light beer, which he took as a good sign.

“Jesus Christ,” Dean said, mouth full, as he spied Castiel.

“Relax, Winchester, I’m not here to ruin your evening — since that ship’s sailed; merely to ask you not to drink too much. Now that I know you want privacy more than alcohol, I’ll be on my way.”

The bartender came up and Castiel said, “I just came in looking for my friend, I won’t be staying.”

“What happened to me when you took that grace out of me?” Dean asked after the bartender was out of earshot. “I feel - I don’t know - not right. Weird, I guess.”

“It might be physiological. It’s certainly psychological. Your last connection, your last etheric connection to your Cas, is severed. You likely feel empty, directionless, numb.”

“How’s that different from any other fucking day? You’re a real barrel of laughs, you know that, angel?” Dean said. He drained his beer and said, “Let’s go back to the Mills Academy - yes, don’t look like that, I’ll give you a lift - and we can face the music together. Think you can pretend we’ve put aside all our differences, and we walk through the door arm in arm, laughing?”

“No, Winchester. Pretending is not my jam.”

“Look at you, all busting out with the kids’ slang.”

“I’m drowning in angsty teenage girls with horrifying backstories, Dean! Learning a teenaged vocabulary is hardly sufficient compensation.”

“What’s Paulie’s story?” Dean said as he pushed open the door into the freezing wind.

“Are we having a conversation?” Castiel said. His eyes were in shadow.

“Just shooting the shit,” Dean said.

“I am very, very uncomfortable with revealing anything she’s said to me without her prior knowledge and permission.”

“So she’s more important to you than I am, good to know.”

Castiel said, “I’ve lived with her since August and I’ve spoken to you on perhaps thirty occasions since I came - here. You might want to consider that her relative importance to me is higher than yours - in this matter - because she’s a minor child in a household that’s sheltering me. If something hunting related came up, it would be different.”

Dean said, “If you say so.”

The rest of the ride passed in silence. It wasn’t friendly silence, but it didn’t seem to matter.

As they pulled up to the house, Dean killed the engine and said, “I have to know.”

Castiel, who had already unbuckled and was preparing to get away from this angry, bitter man with all the speed he could, settled back down.

“What,” he said flatly.

“What did you say to the other Dean.”

“About what?”

Dean swallowed.

“I know you have a perfect memory. What was the conversation.”

“It was a private conversation between me and Dean, and I only told you about it because something made me think you’d had the same conversation with your Cas.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Dean, what on earth difference does it make? In what possible scenario would he have said yes? I understand how selfish I was now and I’m not happy with what happened, but he let me fight alongside him for another three years, and _that_ was worth it. I _know_ it was.”

Dean sat at the steering wheel, nodding. He slowly turned his head to look at Castiel.

In his most deadly serious tone, Dean said, “I won’t ask again. What did you say to him?”

“Your ability to throw yourself on the spikiest bits of your own psyche for the sheer joy of impaling yourself never ceases to appall me. You’ll get no joy from this, but I suppose that was your objective.” He took a breath.

“Very well,” Cas said. “I told him - that we’d been together a long time and that I would be honored if he’d consider me as his life partner. Then he asked me if I was proposing, and I said not really, because at the time I was thinking more along the lines of having a registered domestic partnership so I could at least get to see you - I mean, my Dean, in hospital and he said ‘Thank God!’ Then he pulled a finger gun on me and said, ‘Bang, you’re my life partner,’ and burst out laughing. Then he said, ‘Oh, you’re serious. Gee man, I like you and all but that’s not gonna happen.’ I was devastated and he said, “You’re my hunting partner, and that’s not nothing, I’m sorry I’m such a dick, please stay.’”

Dean considered this.

“And you two never talked about it again.”

“I told the other Sam, afterward, and your Sam.”

“Sam knows. Of course he does.” Dean looked out the window so Castiel wouldn’t see him weep.

“Sam was kind to me, in both universes,” Castiel said, as if it were the obvious explanation. “But I should have talked to him first in my universe, because he would have warned me not to say anything, and then I would have kept my dignity, like your Cas did.”

“Right,” Dean said, looking out the window and nodding. “Cas always was a dignified sort of guy. So am I a dick in every universe – or just the ones you’ve seen so far?”

“You’re a hero in every universe, at least as long as you’re alive,” Castiel said.

“That’s encouraging. He was lucky he had your love,” Dean said, in spite of himself.

Cas was speechless. He literally could not think of anything to say, so he awkwardly patted Dean’s shoulder.

Dean kept looking out the window. “So what did Dean do to make you think you’d say yes?”

Cas leaned his head back. “In retrospect, nothing. We slept in the same bed many times, and I sheltered him with my wings a few times… and he kissed me, once, when he was - “

“Plastered,” Dean supplied. He couldn’t imagine how drunk he’d have to be to kiss his Cas.

“Spellbound,” Cas said. “He laughed it off, afterward, but I thought that was for Sam’s benefit, and that he was - and now of course it’s not important enough to be even academic, at this late juncture. Can we go in? I’m finding this topic of conversation to be at odds with the notion of a joyous Thanksgiving family gathering.”

“I suppose,” Dean said. He sniffed and put the backs of his hands to his eyes.

“Dean… are you … I’m sorry, you’re crying and I don’t know why.”

“Oh,” Dean said in a voice roughened with grief, “I dunno, Cas, maybe it’s because he loved me, and I loved him, and we were idiots, and now he’s gone.”

Castiel’s own anguish, over his stupid tale of unrequited love, melted in the face of Dean’s sorrow. “Dean, you had an exceptional partnership, and he wouldn’t want you to mourn too much.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he wouldn’t,” Dean laugh-cried. He thought he could chase off the tears, and to his horror, he heard himself sob. The waterworks were running at full speed.

He heard the car door slam. Castiel went into the house. It was almost a relief, but not quite. After about a minute, Sam appeared. Sam got him dried off and back into the house, and of course, Castiel had gone to his room, and Dean threw himself into the evening’s entertainment, and made himself appear to enjoy the surprise Thanksgiving video the girls had made for Jody, and the Supernatural Beasts trivia game which (apparently) Sam and Claire had collaborated on, and _Planes, Trains and Automobiles,_ the modern classic Turkey Day movie.

When every last person in the house was asleep, Dean crept out of his bed and went to Castiel’s room.

He knocked, softly. “Open up.”

“Dean, at this point you’re just punishing yourself,” Castiel said quietly through the door.

“Lemme in, or we’ll start waking these folks up,” Dean said, sounding irked.

Reluctantly Castiel opened the door. Dean stalked in.

“Fine,” said Castiel, “What punishment are you looking for now, Dean?”

“The usual. More of the same,” Dean murmured. Louder, he said, “I’m confused. People can have registered domestic partnerships without there being any sex involved. Is that what you wanted from your Dean? My Cas was always a little strange about expressing whatever sexuality was going on in there, which was why I didn’t press him.”

“Why you didn’t…”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I loved him,” Dean said.

“Love’s a word that covers a very wide range of human feelings and behaviours, Dean, so it’s good to - it’s useful to be specific.”

“Did you want the two of you to be lovers?”

There was a long silence.

“As much as I want to be honest with you, Dean, I can’t see how it would be in my best interest.”

“You were okay with sleeping in the same bed and nothing else.”

“Dean, I didn’t think it through. I didn’t understand he – it never occurred to him to consider me in sexual terms, except as a potential partner for someone else.”

Dean gave a chuckle of disbelief. “The hell he didn’t,” he said.

He took two swift steps toward Castiel, and to his astonishment Dean pulled him into his arms and started to kiss him. Castiel didn’t struggle, but he most certainly did not respond. He went limp.

“Well, that answers that question,” Dean said. “Castiel, your loyalty is definitely one of your distinguishing characteristics. Your Dean didn’t deserve you any more than I deserved Cas.”

He blew a long breath out. “I’d like to apologize for intruding on your space, your time and your … person,” Dean said. “It won’t happen again. ’Night,” he said, and left.

Castiel sat down so abruptly he almost slid onto the floor. He touched his lips, still not believing this Dean had kissed him.

He’d stayed true to his Dean, despite the temptation; it would be awkward with Winchester, but when _wasn’t_ it messy and painful and awkward? Castiel sat bolt upright. He had to ask Winchester not to tell Sam.

Dean was bedding down on the sofa when Castiel tiptoed into the living room.

“Oh god, _now_ what,” Dean whispered.

“Don’t tell Sam,” Castiel whispered back

“I won’t,” Dean whispered.

Castiel returned to his room.

“Don’t tell Sam what, Dean?” came Sam’s sleepy voice from the other side of the coffee table.

“We had a private conversation,” Dean said quietly.

“About?” Sam asked, somewhat sharply.

“Loyalty,” Dean said. Given Sam’s lapses along that line, as revealed earlier in the day, Sam had the sense to keep his mouth shut after that.

Everyone came out to see them off the next morning, everyone except Castiel. Dean had expected him to be a no-show and was therefore startled when Castiel appeared next to Sam as he was about to get in the car. Sam gave him one of his unreserved hugs.

“Bye, Castiel.”

“Safe journey, Sam,” Castiel replied. Dean got out of the car.

“What am I? Chopped liver?”

Castiel walked around to the other side of the car. “I have never understood that expression,” he said, brow wrinkling. Dean put out his arms.

Paulie said under her breath to Claire, who’d already collected her hugs, “What is _with_ those two?”

Castiel collected his hug. The hug went on long enough that the girls on the step began to mutter, and then with a final back clap, Dean was in the driver’s seat and the Winchesters headed out. There was no home to go to, but there were hunters to see and monsters to kill, and the open road lay in all its panoply before them.

Sam got half a dozen text messages over the next hour.

From Paulie: **C left the sec you did. J dosn’t know where he is.**

From Jody: **Don’t be too surprised if Castiel turns up.**

From Claire: **??wtf CasTL & Dn?**

And there were more, of course. The tenth time Sam’s phone buzzed, Dean actually laughed. “Is everybody freaking out about the hug? I thought if we settled our differences it would be a Thanksgiving feel-good story.”

“Is that what happened?” Sam said dubiously.

“I got to save the angel by hugging him, which strikes me as more of a Christmas story than Thanksgiving, you know? I feel kinda weird about that. But anyway, it means we get to borrow him for another fight, just like you wanted, Sam. S’all good, man.”

Sam looked at his brother’s profile. As far as he could tell, Dean was fine. He had a little half smile on his face as if he finally had something to be amused about. It was a relief. When he hadn’t been blank with grief or alcohol of late, Dean had been like a sulky teenager.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick about Castiel. I was trying to make a pointabout how much _more_ I missed him than everybody else without actually acknowledging _why_ I missed him. And furthermore – I’ve been completely blowing off that you’re really fucking sad about Mom and Cas, and somehow my grief’s more important than yours, and that sucks.”

“Well, your grief _is_ more important - to you.” Sam was matter-of-fact, but also relieved that Dean had woken up to someone else’s pain, at least a little.

“Castiel said I should be kinder to you. He’s right. Maybe if I’m kinder to other people I can learn to be kinder to myself.”

_Fwump._

“I know that sound,” Sam said. He turned around, feigning surprise. “Castiel, dude! You’re here!”

Dean did not look surprised. He had not done anything, actually, but flash those mesmerizing green eyes once in the rear-view, and then resume his experienced analysis of the road ahead.

Sam said, “Hey, wait a minute. Castiel — are you riding with us?”

“It would appear so.”

“I don’t remember inviting you,” Sam said sternly.

Castiel sounded aghast. “But Sam! You took such care in creating my identity and getting me all those shiny credit cards!”

Dean shot Sam a look to check the expression on Sam’s face. He was frowning.

“Jeez, you two, I’m messin’ with ya!” Sam said. “And Castiel, I can’t tell you how glad I am you don’t wear a trench coat. It’s nice to get a sartorial break.”

Castiel sounded dyspeptic. “I don’t think I would find it a useful garment in South Dakota in the wintertime, after I had run out of grace.”

“I got to heal an angel for a change,” Dean said smugly. “Did I kill Hitler in your universe?”

Sam swivelled his head around to trade glances with them both. He said, “Dean, you’re suddenly okay with this? I thought you’d drive off the road!”

“I am acknowledging the error of my ways,” Dean said, in that self-important voice that could underline sarcasm or be in deadly earnest. It was one of the conversational tics he’d picked up from Cas.

“One fully juiced up seraph and two fucked up hunters, what can possibly go wrong,” Dean added. He pushed in a cassette and the tape _jammed_.

“What?” said Dean piteously.

“I brought the iPod and speakers, and a nice big battery back up,” Sam said conversationally.

Half an hour later Dean was crying so hard from laughter he had to pull over. Castiel was singing along enthusiastically to “Shake it Off” and when the song finally ended, Dean turned around and said, “Dude, seriously.”

There was something in Castiel’s eyes that had not been there before.

Dean thought _Dude you are so not flirting with me._

“You should hear me sing along to Adele.”

“Sacrilege!” Sam said.

“I’ve been armpit deep in teenage girls, Winchester, what do you want? I had to assume some protective coloration. You have no idea how happy I am to be in this car and get something like a welcome. Did you know that the idea that women’s monthly cycles synchronize is mostly bullshit? The fucking bathroom looked like a badly-cleaned crime scene most days,” he finished gloomily.

Sam and Dean were reduced to horrified silence by this observation.

“You’re both men of the world, in fact much more so than most - is menstruation somehow a taboo subject?”

Sam’s prompt, “No!” clashed with Dean’s “Not taboo, just yuck.”

The next ten minutes proved to be among the funniest of Sam’s life. He contributed little to the conversation except to egg Castiel on, while he gave an impassioned speech on menstruation from the point of view of the average woman. There was no point to it at all, except to make Dean uncomfortable, and as an extended prank, it was superlative. Dean was flushing to the roots of his hair, his knuckles were white, and he was almost squirming in his seat. Every once in a while he’d say something like, “Can we change the subject?” and that would elicit another storm of gender analysis/critique.

“And what does a man have in his life that carries with it the kind of shame that used menstrual products have? The only thing that comes close, if you’ll pardon the pun, is the crusty come-sock, and a lot of the time men don’t even notice that they’re leaving their dried bodily fluids lying around for someone else to wash.”

Dean held up a hand and said, “Uncle! Jesus, I may get my appetite back before noon tomorrow — but maybe not.”

They were headed down the highway, headed for the next hunt. It was never going to be the same, but in its own fucked-up way, it was totally perfect.

Dean looked in the rearview. _You’re not my Cas, but you’ll have to do._

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments cheerfully accepted.


End file.
